LURKING under several million dollars' worth of digital effects
in Gore Verbinski's Pirates of the Caribbean sequel is a
sadly missed opportunity.

I'm talking about the film's arch villain, the spectral
buccaneer Davy Jones - captain of the ghost ship the Flying
Dutchman and Ruler of the Ocean Depths.

Condemned to a waterlogged form of eternal damnation, Captain
Jones has been partly transformed into an octopus. His washed-out
countenance is encircled by waving arms, and a pulsing membrane has
colonised the back of his neck.

It wasn't until the credits rolled that I realised that
somewhere within this convincing computer-generated cephalopod was
the British comic actor Bill Nighy.

Fans of Nighy's jaded old rock'n'roller from Love
Actually will understand how cheated I felt. Special effects
buffs won't - which is fine. But they should know what they're
missing in having his face hidden.

If ever an actor was equipped to convey the infinite
world-weariness you'd expect to find in a member of the undead,
he's the one. And worse, we lose the chance of watching his brand
of high camp shape up to the equally elevated variety displayed by
Johnny Depp's celebrated antihero, Captain Jack Sparrow.

Sparrow, too, is a mistake. The name, I mean. If we're going to
stick with the bird analogy, Depp's creation is something between
peacock and bowerbird. He has acknowledged Keith Richards as his
chief inspiration. Captain Jack's addled grace, his tipsy
eye-rolling, his beads, rings, plaitings and piercings are all
borrowed from Richards. But the mincing walk is pure drag queen,
and the foppishness is less Richards than Jagger. The sense of fun,
however, is Depp's own work, and it's still keeping the series
afloat.

Despite Nighy's effacement, Pirates is one of the most
human of blockbusters, and its crew of supporting players, with
their blistered skin, mossy teeth and uncertain command of dry
land, are still worth watching for the flair with which they plunge
into the action.

The least of the film's attractions - or worries - is the plot.
Davy Jones and the Flying Dutchman are loosely cobbled together. We
also get a spectacular add-on in the form of the kraken, the giant
squid of 12th-century Norwegian mythology, which is recruited to
play the part of Captain Jones's pet, popping up regularly to
embrace a ship and sweep it to the ocean floor.

For Sparrow's ship, the Black Pearl, things are tough. And
that's not all. It's also being pursued by the East India Trading
Company, depicted as a greedy multinational out to rid the seas of
happy-go-lucky freelancers like Jack so it can go on committing its
18th-century version of white-collar crime without
interference.

A sneering Tom Hollander is the company officer, and caught in
his machinations are the heroic lovers, Will Turner (Orlando Bloom)
and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley). Blandness, however, is a far
more serious threat to these two. They're still pretty and pretty
dull - even though she gets to handle a sword and he's awarded his
own subplot.

His estranged father - played by a barnacle-encrusted Stellan
Skarsgard - turns up among the Flying Dutchman's crew of lost souls
and Will, ever ambitious, decides he's going to liberate him from
the undead world.

The computer-generated stuff has a seductively moody sense of
solidity. Verbinski ( The Ring, The Mexican) has always
had a talent for putting life's shady side on screen, and the
Flying Dutchman, with its sinister overlay of seaweed and heavy
mildew, is a magnificently gloomy creation. So, too, are the mouldy
mermen who make up its crew. And the stunts have the wicked
ingenuity of the most exuberant slapstick, with much sword-waving
but next to no connection between cold steel and warm flesh.

It's not so much of a tale of derring-do as
derring-don't-want-to - especially when it comes to Jack, who is
always eager to avoid a fight. This is probably because the effort
of remaining upright under the influence of whatever he's just
imbibed takes all the physical co-ordination he can muster.

The film's main flaw is its running time. At 21/2 hours it's
straining the friendship. And no doubt the next sequel, which has
been in part-production alongside this one, will be along soon,
packed with yet more computerised miracles.

Rumours that Keith Richards is to appear in the role of Captain
Jack's father have been confirmed, so it's to be hoped he doesn't
get the Nighy treatment, too.